Motor vehicles utilizing internal combustion engines typically have an engine compartment defined by vehicle body members such as wheel-well sheet metal, chassis/frame members, fire walls, etc. It is likewise common to provide an electric storage battery in the engine compartment for providing starting, lighting and ignition functions to the vehicle. The lives of such batteries are shortened when the battery is subjected to excessive heat and/or high amplitude/low-frequency vibrations/oscillations. It has been proposed to shield the battery from engine compartment heat by placing it in an appropriate enclosure and the battery is preferably securely mounted in a tray which itself is substantially rigidly anchored to the body member defining the engine compartment such that the battery is subjected to substantially only those vibrations/oscillations which are experienced by the body member itself.
In some vehicle designs, the configuration of, and available space within, the engine compartment precludes the battery tray from being perfectly rigidly secured to the body member, as discussed above, and has necessitated the use of battery trays which are anchored at one end to the body member and which are cantilevered out from the body member so as to leave a substantially unsupported distal end projecting into the engine compartment. The distal end of such cantilevering trays is susceptible to vibration modes and oscillations which are different from that experienced by the end of the tray which is mounted to the body member. Attempts to rigidify the cantilevering tray and reduce the amplitude of the oscillations of the distal end thereof by means of underlying braces or buttresses have met with only limited success in that the distal ends of the trays often still experience untoward oscillations detrimental to the life of the batteries they carry.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a cantilevering battery tray and overlying damper and retaining means associated therewith for both retaining the battery in the tray and reducing the amplitude of the oscillations of the tray's distal end to thereby prolong the useful life of the battery. It is a further object of the present invention, to provide such a brace and retaining means integral with an enclosure surrounding the battery and shielding it from heat within the engine compartment. These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the detailed description thereof which follows and which is given hereafter in conjunction with the several drawings in which:
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a vehicular engine compartment and battery retainer therein in accordance with the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a sectioned view taken in the direction 2--2 of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of another embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 4 is a sectioned view taken in the direction 4--4 of FIG. 3;
FIG. 5 is a sectioned view taken in the direction 5--5 of FIG. 1;
FIG. 6 is a sectioned view taken in the direction 6--6 of FIG. 3; and
FIG. 7 is a view taken in the direction 7--7 of FIG. 4.